1. Field
Embodiments of the invention relate to simultaneous download to multiple targets.
2. Description of the Related Art
A challenge in any data protection or replication solution is network bandwidth usage, particularly with very large files and particularly when going to Wide Area Network (WAN) speed target locations. It is not practical to transmit the entirety of a multi-gigabyte file when only some sub-portion of the file has changed since a prior transfer.
There are a variety of techniques for optimizing the amount of data transferred in a replication solution. A replication solution may be described as providing backup and protection of data. Known techniques have various drawbacks or complications. Of particular interest to corporate Information Technology (IT) administrators today is the replication of end-user email database files (e.g., Microsoft® Outlook® personal folder files with “.pst” extensions). These end-user email database files have grown dramatically in size recently, with each file often being well over 2 gigabytes large. Also, corporations are severely cutting back on server-side email storage. Since the corporate side is too small to include the end-user email database files in a server-side (e.g., Microsoft® Exchange server) backup, an end-user email database file (e.g., a .pst file) is typically the only copy of the email messages. This presents enormous risk and exposure to corporations as important email messages may be lost. What is needed is a method for efficiently backing-up end-user email database files (such as Microsoft® Outlook® pst files or Lotus® Notes “.nsf” extension files).
Thus, there is a need in the art for improved storage of end-user email database files.